Prayer and Reflections  January 17th

                                                           Prayer

Dear Father Thank you Lord for my many blessings. Help me everyday to see the things I can be grateful for. Help me to reach out to others lovingly and kindly. Help me to put others before myself. Bless us Lord in all we do in your name Jesus AMEN.

We continue to pray for Beryl, She is severe pain and restricted activities We continue to pray for Mike Pearson requiring daily visits to hospital for treatment We continue to pray for Pat and Dave , Elsie, Gwen, Frank, Amanda

Reflection  Helen                                     What's in your cup.

This week I would like to share with you something Jules shared with me and I thought it was very thought provoking. Imagine holding a cup of coffee.    Then imagine that someone comes along and bumps into you this shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere ! Question: Why did you spill the coffee ? Answer: Because someone bumped into me ! Wrong Answer: You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea ! Whatever is in the cup is what you will spill. Therefore, when life comes and knocks you or shakes you (which we all know will happen!) Whatever is inside you will come out. It Is easy to fake what is inside until you are rattled. So ask yourself this week “what is in my cup” When life gets tough what spills over? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility or anger, bitterness, hard words and reactions ? We are all provided with the cup, our life, we choose how to fill it. So this week let's make a real effort to remind ourselves to fill our lives with gratitude, look every day for something to be grateful for.   Let’s look to fill our lives with forgiveness, this week forgive that person that may have hurt you or not rung you when you expected them to, actively forgive them.  Joy and kindness, Joy can be found in giving so this week look for ways to give to others rather than looking for ways to receive. Think of that cup brimming over with gratitude, forgiveness, joy and kindnes  

Reflection  Derek

We have all heard  “it's more blessed to give than to receive.” Depends if your the giver or receiver Over the years I have tried to comply with the first part, mostly practical some received with gratitude other me seeing a positive outcome Last Friday I was the recipient of a stranger's giving,  Pauline and myself had been  out to do some essential shopping. Our car had stood for over a week, due to the weather conditions we had the heater on lights on and at times the wipers, we stopped at two shops requiring two restarts Due to the minus 3.8 deg temperatures  I was concerned whether the precautions Mark and myself had taken to keep the church systems frost free had been adequate, we stopped off at church for me to check.  Starting the car for the 3rd time proved to be one too many the battery was flat. What do we do? With the underfoot conditions Pauline couldn't walk home. With my phone in my hand a lady came to our car and aked “ have you got a problem “ I explained the problem  “ would you like a jump start “ ( connecting two car batteries ) within 3 minutes my car was running.  I can't explain in words how grateful we were. I don't know the lady. But she could see our gratitude  No problem she said Before leaving the car park I said thank you Lord.  I do hope the Lady felt at least she had done her good deed for the day, she certainly had our blessing, she may have received one too I hope so. I asked myself what can I give this week?  I did come up with an answer  

Reading Helen’s Prayer and both Reflections you may have thought we had discussed the message  NO    We just have the same Holy Spirit